25 OEisrrrs. 



AH antf miracle. 




A LECTURE 



BY 



Rob't G. Ingersoll. 



Correct and authorized edition, revised and enlarged. 



NEW YORK. 
C. P. FARRELL, PUBLISHER, 
1895. 



«r-ia.®t Out, New 3SIc3.itioxi.fi 

Prose-Posnis utf Selection 

BY 

ROBERT G. INGERSOLL, 

Sixth Edition, Revised mid greatly Enlarged. A Handsome Quarto, 
containing over 400 pages. 

THIS is, beyond question, the most elegant volume in Liberal literature. Its 
mechanical finish is worthy of its intrinsic excellence. No expense has 
been spared to make if the thing of beauty it is. The type is large and 
clear, the paper heavy, highly calendered and richly tinted, the press- 
work faultless, and the binding as perfect as the best materials and skill can 
make it. The book is in every way an artistic triumph. 

As to the contents, it is enough to say that they include some of the choicest 
utterances of the greatest writer on the topics treated that has ever lived. 

You will have in this book of selections many bright samples of his lofty 
thought, his matchless eloquence, his wonderful imagery, and his epigrammatic 
and poetic power. 

The book is designed for, and will be accepted by, admiring friends as a rare 
personal souvenir. To help it serve this purpose, a fine steel portrait, with au- 
tograph fac-simile, has been prepared especially for it. In the more elegant 
styles of binding it is eminently suited for presentation purposes, for any season 
or occasion. 

CONTENTS. 



Oration delivered on Decora- 
tion Day, 1882, before the 
Grand Army of the Repub- 
lic, at the Academy of 
Music, N. Y., 

A Tribute to Ebon C. Inger- 
soll, 

A Vision of War, 
At a Child's Grave, 
Benefits for Injuries, 
We Build, 

A Tribute to the Rev. Alex- 
ander Clark, 
The Grant Banquet, 
Apostrophe to Liberty, 
A Tribute to John G. Mills, 
The Warp and Woof, 
The Cemetery, 
Originality, 
Then and Now, 
Voltaire, 
Lazarus, 

What is Worship ? 

Humboldt, 

God Silent, 

Alcohol, 

Auguste Comte, 

The Infidel, 

Napoleon, 

The Republic, 

Dawn of the New Day, 

Reformers, 

The Garden of Eden, 

Thomas Paine, 

The Age of Faith, 

Origin of Religion, 



The Unpardonable Sin, 

The Olive Branch, 

Free Will, 

The King of Death, 

The Wise Man, 

Bruno, 

The Real Bible, 
Benedict Spinoza, 
The First Doubt. 
The Infinite Horror, 

Nature, 

Night and Morning, 

The Conflict, 

Death of the Aged, 

The Charity of Extravagance 

Woman, 

The Sacred Myths, 
Inspiration, 

Religious Liberty of the Bible. 
The Laugh of a child. 
The Christian Night, 
My Choice, 
Why? 

Imagination, 

Science 

If Death Ends All, 
Here and There, 
How Long ? 
Liberty, 

Jehovah and Brahma, 
The Free Soul, 
Life, 

Tribute to Henry Ward 

Beecher, 
Tribute to Courtlandt Palmer 
The Brain, 



The Sacred Leaves, 

Origin and Destiny. 

What is Poetry ? 

My Position, 

Good and Bad, 

The Miraculous Book, 

Orthodox Dotage, 

The Abolitionists, 

Providence, 

The Man Christ, 

The Divine Salutation, 

At the Grave of Benjamin W. 

Parker, 
Fashion and Beauty. 
Apostrophe to Science, 
Elizur Wright. 
The Imagination, 
No Respecter of Persons, 
Abraham Lincoln, 
The Meaning of Law, 
What is Blasphemy? 
Some Reasons, 
Selections, 
Love, 

The Birthplace of Burns, 
Mrs. Ida Whiting Knowles, 
Art and Morality, 
Tribute to Roscoe Conklin, 
Tribute to Rich'd H. Whiting. 
Mrs. Mary H. Fiske, 
Horace Seaver, 
The Music of Wagner, 
Leaves of Grass, 
Vivisection, 

The Republic of Mediocrity, 
A Tribute to Walt Whitman 



fn Cloth, beveled boards, gilt edges, 
In Half Morocco, gilt edges, 



$2.50 
5.00 

In Half Calf, mottled edges, library style, - 4.50 
In Full Turkey Morocco, gilt, exquisitely fine, 7.BO 
In Full Tree-Calf, highest possible finish, - 9.00 

Sent to any address, by express, prepaid, or mail, post free, on receipt of price. 
&g~A cheaper edition from same plates, good paper, wide margins, cloth, $1.50.' e ©|i 

Address C. P. FARRELL, Publisher, 

July, 1895. New York City, N.Y. 



Myth and Miracle. 



A LECTURE 

BY 

Robert G. Ingersoll. 



/^ssm^s 

AUG 8 1189* 

\ <s>. 

The only Correct and Authorized Edition, Revised and Enlarged. 



NEW YORK. 
C. P. FARRELL, PUBLISHER, 
1895. 




Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1895, 
By ROBERT G. INGERSOLL, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. 



TriE ELCKLER PREJJ 

35 ruLTON v5r. 
New York. 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 



I. 

HAPPINESS is the true end and aim of life. 
It is the task of intelligence to ascertain the con- 
ditions of happiness, and when found the truly wise 
will live in accordance with them. By happiness is 
meant not simply the joy of eating and drinking — 
the gratification of the appetite — but good, well 
being, in the highest and noblest forms. The joy 
that springs from obligation discharged, from duty 
done, from generous acts, from being true to 
the ideal, from a perception of the beautiful in na- 
ture, art and conduct. The happiness that is born 
of and gives birth to poetry and music, that follows 
the gratification of the highest wants. 

Happiness is the result of all that is really right 
and sane. 



4 MYTH AND MIRACLE. 

But there are many people who regard the desire 
to be happy as a very low and degrading ambition, 
These people call themselves spiritual. They pre- 
tend to care nothing for the pleasures of " sense." 
They hold this world, this life, in contempt. They 
do not want happiness in this world — but in an- 
other. Here happiness degrades — there it purifies 
and ennobles. 

These spiritual people have been known as proph- 
ets, apostles, augurs, hermits, monks, priests, popes, 
bishops and parsons. They are devout and useless. 
They do not cultivate the soil. They produce noth- 
ing. They live on the labor of others. They are 
pious and parasitic. They pray for others, if the 
others will work for them. They claim to have been 
selected by the Infinite to instruct and govern man- 
kind. They are " meek " and arrogant, " long-suf- 
fering " and revengeful. 

They ever have been, now are, and always will 
be the enemies of liberty, of investigation and 
science. They are believers in the supernatural, the 
miraculous and the absurd. They have filled the 
world with hatred, bigotry and fear. In defence of 
their creeds they have committed every crime and 
practiced every cruelty. 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 



5 



They denounce as worldly and sensual those 
who are gross enough to love wives and children, 
to build homes, to fell the forests, to navigate 
the seas, to cultivate the earth, to chisel statues, 
to paint pictures and fill the world with love 
and art. 

They have denounced and maligned the thinkers, 
the poets, the dramatists, the composers, the actors, 
the orators, the workers — those who have con- 
quered the world for man. 

According to them this world is only the vestibule 
of the next, a kind of school, an ordeal, a place 
of probation. They have always insisted that this 
life should be spent in preparing for the next ; that 
those who supported and obeyed the " spiritual 
guides" — the shepherds, would be rewarded with 
an eternity of joy, and that all others would suffer 
eternal pain. 

These spiritual people have always hated labor. 
They have added nothing to the wealth of the world. 
They have always lived on alms — on the labor of 
others. They have always been the enemies of in- 
nocent pleasure, and of human love. 

These spiritual people have produced a literature. 
The books they have written are called sacred. Our 



6 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 



sacred books are called the Bible. The Hindoos 
have the Vedas and many others, the Persians the 
Zend Avesta — the Egyptians had the Book of the 
Dead — the Aztecs the Popol Vuh, and the Moham- 
edans have the Koran. 

These books, for the most part, treat of the un- 
knowable. They describe gods and winged phan- 
toms of the air. They give accounts of the origin 
of the universe, the creation of man and the worlds 
beyond this. They contain nothing of value. Mill- 
ions and millions of people have wasted their lives 
studying these absurd and ignorant books. 

The " spiritual people " in each country claimed 
that their books had been written by inspired men 
— that God was the real author, and that all men 
and women who denied this would be, after death, 
tormented forever. 

And yet, the worldly people, the uninspired, the 
wicked, have produced a far greater literature than 
the spiritual and the inspired. 

Not all the sacred books of the world equal 
Shakespeare's " volume of the brain." A purer 
philosophy, grander, nobler, fell from the lips of 
Shakespeare's clowns than the Old Testament, or 
thq New, contains. 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 7 

The Declaration of Independence is nobler far 
than all the utterances from Sinai's cloud and flame. 
"A man's a Man for a' That," by Robert Burns, is 
better than anything the sacred books contain. For 
my part, I would rather hear Beethoven's Sixth 
Symphony than to read the five books of Moses. 
Give me the Sixth Symphony — a sound-wrought 
picture of the fields and woods, of flowering hedge, 
and happy homes, where thrushes build and swallows 
fly, and mothers sing to babes, an echo of the 
babbling lullaby of brooks that dallying wind and 
flow where meadows bare their daisied bosoms to 
the sun, the joyous mimicry of summer rain — the 
laugh of children and the rhythmic rustle of the 
whispering leaves, the strophe of peasant life — a 
perfect poem of content and love. 

I would rather listen to Tristan and Isolde — that 
Mississippi of melody — where the great notes 
winged like eagles lift the soul above the cares and 
griefs of this weary world — than to all the orthodox 
sermons ever preached. I would rather look at 
the Venus de Milo than to read the Presbyterian 
creed. 

The spiritual have endeavored to civilize the world 
through fear and faith — by the promise of reward 



8 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 



and the threat of pain in other worlds. They taught 
men to hate and persecute their fellow-men. In all 
ages they have appealed to force. During all the 
years they have practiced fraud. They have pre- 
tended to have influence with the gods — that their 
prayers gave rain, sunshine and harvest — that their 
curses brought pestilence and famine, and that 
their blessings filled the world with plenty. They 
have subsisted on the fears their falsehoods created. 
Like poisonous vines, they have lived on the oak of 
labor. They have praised charity, but they never 
gave. They have denounced revenge, but they 
never forgave. 

Whenever the spiritual have had power, art has 
died, learning has languished, science has been de- 
spised, liberty destroyed, the thinkers have been 
imprisoned, the intelligent and honest have been 
outcasts, and the brave have been murdered. 

The " spiritual " have been, are, and always will 
be the enemies of the human race. 

For all the blessings that we now enjoy — for 
progress in every form, for science and art — for all 
that has lengthened life, that has conquered disease, 
that has lessened pain, for raiment, roof and food, 
for music in its highest forms — for the poetry that 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 9 

has ennobled and enriched our lives — for the mar- 
vellous machines now working for the world — for 
all this we are indebted to the worldly — to those 
who turned their attention to the affairs of this 
life. They have been the only benefactors of our 
race. 



IO 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 



II. 

AND yet all of these religions — these " sacred 
books," these priests, have been naturally 
produced. From the dens and caves of savagery to 
the palaces of civilization men have traveled by the 
necessary paths and roads. Back of every step has 
been the efficient cause. In the history of the world 
there has been no chance, no interference from with- 
out, nothing miraculous. Everything in accordance 
with and produced by the facts in nature. 

We need not blame the hypocritical and cruel. 
They thought and acted as they were compelled to 
think and act. 

In all ages man has tried to account for himself 
and his surroundings. He did the best he could. 
He wondered why the water ran, why the trees 
grew, why the clouds floated, why the stars shone, 
why the sun and moon journeyed through the 
heavens. He was troubled about life and death, 
about darkness and dreams. The seas, the vol- 
canoes, the lightning and thunder, the earthquake 
and cyclone, filled him with fear. Behind all life and 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 



I I 



growth and motion, and even inanimate things, he 
placed a spirit — an intelligent being — a fetich, a 
person, something like himself — a god, controlled 
by love and hate. To him causes and effects be- 
came gods — supernatural beings. The Dawn was a 
maiden, wondrously fair, the Sun, a warrior and 
lover; the Night, a serpent, a wolf — the Wind, a 
musician ; Winter, a wild beast ; Autumn, Proserpine 
gathering flowers. 

Poets were the makers of these myths. They 
were the first to account for what they saw and 
felt. The great multitude mistook these fancies for 
facts. Myths strangely alike, were produced by 
most nations, and gradually took possession of the 
world. 

The Sleeping Beauty, a myth of the year, has 
been found among most peoples. In this myth, the 
Earth was a maiden — the Sun was her lover. She 
had fallen asleep in winter. Her blood was still and 
her breath had gone. In the Spring the lover came, 
clasped her in his arms, covered her lips and cheeks 
with kisses. She was thrilled, her heart began to 
beat, she breathed, her blood flowed, and she awoke 
to love and joy. This myth has made the circuit 
of the globe. 



12 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 



So, Red Riding-Hood is the history of a day. 
Little Red Riding-Hood — the morning, touched 
with red, goes to visit her kindred, a day that is 
past. She is attacked by the wolf of night and is 
rescued by the hunter, Apollo, who pierces the 
heart of the beast with an arrow of light. 

The beautiful myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is 
the story of the year. Eurydice has been captured 
and carried to the infernal world. Orpheus, playing 
upon his harp, goes after her. Such is the effect of 
his music when he reaches the realm of Pluto, the 
laughterless, that Tantalus ceases his efforts to slake 
his thirst. He listens and forgets his withered lips, 
the daughters of the Danaides cease their vain ef- 
forts to fill the seive with water, Sisyphus sits down 
on the stone that he so often had heaved against 
the mountain's misty side, Ixion pauses upon his 
wheel of fire, even Pluto smiles, and for the first 
time in the history of hell the cheeks of the Furies 
are wet with tears. 

" Give me back Eurydice," cried Orpheus, and 
Pluto said : "Take her, but look not back." Orpheus 
led the way and Eurydice followed. Just as he 
reached the upper world, he missed her footsteps, 
turned, looked, and she vanished. 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 



13 



And thus the summer comes, is lost, and comes 
again through all the years. 

So, our ancestors believed in the Garden of Eden, 
in the Golden Age, in the blessed time when all 
were good and pure — when nature satisfied the 
wants of all. The race, like the old man, has golden 
dreams of youth. The morning was filled with light 
and life and joy, and the evening is always sad. 
When the old man was young, girls were beautiful 
and men were honest. He remembers his Eden. 
And so the whole world has had its age of gold. 

Our fathers were believers in the Elysian Fields. 
They were in the far, far West. They saw them at 
the setting of the sun. They saw the floating isles 
of gold in sapphire seas ; the templed mist with 
spires and domes of emerald and amethyst ; the 
magic caverns of the clouds, resplendent with the 
rays of every . gem. And as they looked, they 
thought the curtain had been drawn aside and that 
their eyes had for a moment feasted on the glories 
of another world. 

The myth of the Flood has also been universal. 
Finding shells of the seas on plain and mountain, 
and everywhere some traces of the waves, they 
thought the world had been submerged — that God 



14 MYTH AND MIRACLE. 

in wrath had drowned the race, except a few his 
mercy saved. 

The Hindus say that Menu, a holy man, dipped 
from the Ganges some water, and in the basin saw 
a little fish. The fish begged him to throw him 
back into the river, and Menu, having pity, cast 
him back. The fish then told Menu that there was 
to be a flood — told him to build an ark, to take on 
board, people, animals and food, and that when the 
flood came, he, the fish, would save him. The saint 
did as he was told, the flood came, the fish returned. 
By that time he had grown to be a whale with a 
horn in his head. About this horn Menu fastened a 
rope, attached the other end to the ark, and the fish 
towed the boat across the raging waves to a mount- 
ain's top, where it rested until the waters subsided. 
The name of this wonderful fish was Matsaya. 

Many other nations told similar stories of floods 
and arks and the sending forth of doves. 

In all these myths and legends of the past we find 
philosophies and dreams and efforts, stained with 
tears, of great and tender souls who tried to pierce 
the mysteries of life and death, to answer the ques- 
tions of the whence and whither, and who vainly 
sought with bits of shattered glass to make a mirror 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 



that would in very truth reflect the face and form 
of Nature's perfect self. These myths were born of 
hopes and fears, of tears and smiles, and they were 
touched and colored by all there is of joy and grief 
between the rosy dawn of birth and death's sad 
night. They clothed even the stars with passion 
and gave to gods the faults and frailties of the sons 
of men. In them the winds and waves were music, 
and all the springs, the mountains, woods and per- 
fumed dells were haunted by a thousand fairy forms. 
They thrilled the veins of Spring with tremulous de- 
sire, made tawny Summer's billowy breast the throne 
and home of love, filled Autumn's arms with sun- 
kissed grapes and gathered sheaves, and pictured 
Winter as a weak old king, who felt, like Lear, upon 
his withered face, Cordelia's tears. 

These myths, though false in fact, are beautiful 
and true in thought, and have for many ages and in 
countless ways enriched the heart and kindled 
thought. 



i6 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 



HI. 

IN all probability the first religion was Sun-wor- 
ship. Nothing could have been more natural. 
Light was life and warmth and love. The sun was 
the fireside of the world. The sun was the " all- 
seeing" — the " Sky Father." Darkness was grief 
and death, and in the shadows crawled the serpents 
of despair and fear. 

The sun was a great warrior, fighting the hosts of 
Night. Apollo was the sun, and he fought and con- 
quered the serpent of Night. Agni, the generous, 
who loved the lowliest and visited the humblest, 
was the sun. He was the god of fire and the 
crossed sticks that by friction leaped into flame were 
his emblem. It was said that, in spite of his good- 
ness, he devoured his father and mother, the two 
pieces of wood being his parents. Baldur was the 
sun. He was in love with the Dawn — a maiden — 
he deserted her and traveled through the heavens 
alone. At the twilight they met, were reconciled, 
and the drops of dew were the tears of joy they 
shed. 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. I J 

Chrishna was the sun. At his birth the Ganges 
thrilled from its source to the sea. All the trees, 
the dead as well as the living, burst into leaf and 
bud and flower. 

Hercules was a sun-god. 

Jonah the same, rescued from the fiends of Night 
and carried by the fish through the under world. 
Samson was a sun-god. His strength was in his 
hair — in his beams. He was shorn of his strength 
by Delilah, the shadow — the darkness. So, Osiris, 
Bacchus, Mithra, Hermes, Buddha, Quelzalcoatle, 
Prometheus, Zoroaster, Perseus, Codom Lao-tsze 
Fo-hi, Horus and Rameses were all sun-gods. 

All these gods had gods for fathers and all their 
mothers were virgins. 

The births of nearly all were announced by stars. 

When they were born there was celestial music — 
voices declared that a blessing had come upon the 
earth. 

When Buddha was born, the celestial choir sang : 
" This day is born for the good of men Buddha, and 
to dispel the darkness of their ignorance — to give 
joy and peace to the world." 

Chrishna was born in a cave, and protected by 
shepherds. Bacchus, Apollo, Mithra and Hermes 



1 8 MYTH AND MIRACLE. 

were all born in caves. Buddha was born in an inn 
— according to some, under a tree. 

Tyrants sought to kill all of these gods when they 
were babes. 

When Chrishna was born, a tyrant killed the 
babes of the neighborhood. 

Buddha was the child of Maya, a virgin, in the 
kingdom of Madura. The king arrested Maya be- 
fore&the child was born, imprisoned her in a tower. 
During the night when the child was born, a great 
wind wrecked the tower, and carried mother and 
child to a place of safety. The next morning the 
king sent his soldiers to kill the babes, and when 
they came to Buddha and his mother, the babe ap- 
peared to be about twelve years of age, and the sol- 
diers passed on. 

So Typhon sought in many ways to destroy the 
babe Horus. The king pursued the infant Zoroaster. 
Cadmus tried to kill the infant Bacchus. 

All of these gods were born on the 2 5th of De- 
cember. 

Nearly all were worshiped by " wise men." 
All of them fasted for forty days. 
All met with a violent death. 
All rose from the dead. 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 



19 



The history of these gods is the history of our 
Christ. He had a god for a father, a virgin for a 
mother. He was born in a manger, or a cave — on 
the 2 5th of December. His birth was announced 
by angels. He was worshiped by wise men, guided 
by a star. Herod, seeking his life, caused the death 
of many babes. Christ fasted for forty days. So, it 
rained for forty days before the flood — Moses was 
on Mt. Sinai for forty days. The temple had forty 
pillars and the Jews wandered in the wilderness for 
forty years. Christ met with a violent death, and 
rose from the dead. 

These things are not accidents — not coincidences. 
Christ was a sun-god. All religions have been born 
of sun-worship. To-day, when priests pray, they 
shut their eyes. This is a survival of sun-worship. 
When men worshiped the sun, they had to shut 
their eyes. Afterwards, to flatter idols, they pre- 
tended that the glory of their faces was more than 
the eyes could bear. 

In the religion of our day there is nothing origin- 
al. All of its doctrines, its symbols and cere- 
monies are but the survivals of creeds that perished 
long ago. Baptism is far older than Christianity — 
than Judaism. The Hindus, the Egyptians, the 



20 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 



Greeks and Romans had holy water. The eucha- 
rist was borrowed from the Pagans. Ceres was the 
goddess of the fields, Bacchus the god of the vine. 
At the harvest festival they made cakes of wheat 
and said : " These are the flesh of the goddess." 
They drank wine and cried : " This is the blood of 
our god." 

The cross has been a symbol for many thousands 
of years. It was a symbol of immortality — of life, 
of the god Agni, the form of the grave of a man. 
An ancient people of Italy, who lived long before 
the Romans, long before the Etruscans, so long that 
not one word of their language is known, used the 
cross, and beneath that emblem, carved on stone, 
their dead still rest. In the forests of Central 
America, ruined temples have been found, and on 
the walls the cross with the bleeding victim. On 
Babylonian cylinders is the impression of the cross. 
The Trinity came from Egypt. Osiris, Isis and 
Horus were worshiped thousands of years before 
our Father, Son and Holy Ghost were thought of. 
So the Tree of Life grew in India, China and among 
the Aztecs long before the Garden of Eden was 
planted. Long before our Bible was known, other 
nations had their sacred books, temples and altars, 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 




sacrifices, ceremonies and priests. The " Fall of 
Man " is far older than our religion, and so are the 
" Atonement " and the Scheme of Redemption. 

In our blessed religion there is nothing new, 
nothing original. 

Among the Egyptians the cross was a symbol of 
the life to come. And yet the first religion was, 
and all religions growing out of that, were naturally 
produced. Every brain was a field in which Nature 
sowed the seeds of thought. The rise and set of 
sun, the birth and death of day, the dawns of silver 
and the dusks of gold, the wonders of the rain and 
snow, the shroud of Winter and the many colored 
robe of Spring, the lonely moon with nightly loss or 
gain, the serpent lightning and the thunder's voice, 
the tempests fury and the zephyr's sigh, the threat 
of storm and promise of the bow, cathedral clouds 
with dome and spire, earthquake and strange eclipse, 
frost and fire, the snow-crowned mountains with 
their tongues of flame, the fields of space sown thick 
with stars, the wandering comets hurrying past the 
fixed and sleepless sentinels of night, the marvels of 
the earth and air, the perfumed flower, the painted 
wing, the waveless pool that held within its magic 
breast the image of the startled face, the mimic echo 



22 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 



that made a record in the viewless air, the pathless 
forests and the boundless seas, the ebb and flow of 
tides — the slow, deep breathing of some vague and 
monstrous life — the miracle of birth, the mystery 
of dream and death, and over all the silent and im- 
measurable dome. These were the warp and woof, 
and at the loom sat Love and Fancy, Hope and 
Fear, and wove the wondrous tapestries whereon 
we find pictures of gods and fairy lands and all the 
legends that were told when Nature rocked the 
cradle of the infant world. 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 



23 



IV. 

WE must remember that there is a great differ- 
ence between a myth and a miracle. A 
myth is the idealization of a fact. A miracle is the 
counterfeit of a fact. There is the same difference 
between a myth and a miracle that there is between 
fiction and falsehood — between poetry and perjury. 
Miracles belong to the far past and the far future. 
The little line of sand, called the present, between 
the seas, belongs to common sense, to the natural. 

If you should tell a man that the dead were raised 
two thousand years ago, he would probably say : 
" Yes, I know that." If you should say that a hun- 
dred thousand years from now all the dead will be 
raised, he might say : " Probably they will." But if 
you should tell him that you saw a dead man raised 
and given life that day, he would likely ask the name 
of the insane asylum from which you had escaped. 

Our bible is filled with accounts of miracles and 
yet they always failed to convince. 

Jehovah, according to the Scriptures, wrought 



24 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 



hundreds of miracles for the benefit of the Jews. 
With many miracles he rescued them from slavery, 
guided them on their journey with a miraculous 
cloud by day and a miraculous pillar of fire by night 
— divided the sea that they might escape from the 
Egyptians, fed them with miraculous manna and 
supernatural quails, raised up hornets to attack their 
enemies, caused water to follow them wherever 
they wandered and in countless ways manifested his 
power, and yet the Jews cared nothing for these 
wonders. Not one of them seems to have been 
convinced that Jehovah had done anything for the 
people. 

In spite of all these miracles, the Jews had more 
confidence in a golden calf, made by themselves, 
than in Jehovah. The reason of this is, that the 
miracles were never performed, and never invented 
until hundreds of years after those, who had wan- 
dered over the desert of Sinai, were dust. 

The miracles attributed to Christ had no effect. 
No human being seems to have been convinced by 
them. Those whom he raised from the dead, cured 
of leprosy, or blindness, failed to become his follow- 
ers. Not one of them appeared at his trial. Not 
one offered to bear witness of his miraculous power. 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 



25 



To this there is but one explanation : The miracles 
were never performed. These stories were the 
growth of centuries. The casting out of devils, the 
changing of water into wine, feeding the multitude 
with a few loaves and fishes, resisting the devil, using 
a fish for a pocketbook, curing the blind with clay 
and saliva, stilling the tempest, walking on the water, 
the resurrection and ascension, happened and only 
happened, in the imaginations of men, who were 
not born until several generations after Christ 
was dead. 

In those days the world was filled with ignorance 
and fear. Miracles happened every day. The 
supernatural was expected. Gods were continually 
interfering with the affairs of this world. Everything 
was told except the truth, everything believed ex- 
cept the facts. History was a circumstantial account 
of occurrences that never occurred. Devils and 
goblins and ghosts were as plentiful as saints. The 
bones of the dead were used to cure the living. 
Cemeteries were hospitals and corpses were physi- 
cians. The saints practiced magic, the pious com- 
muned with God in dreams, and the course of events 
was changed by prayer. The credulous demanded 
the marvelous, the miraculous, and the priests sup- 



26 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 



plied the demand. The sky was full of signs, omens 
of death and disaster, and the darkness thick with 
devils endeavoring to mislead and enslave the souls 
of men. 

Our fathers thought that everything had been 
made for man, and that demons and gods gave their 
entire attention to this world. The people believed 
that they were the sport and prey, the favorites or 
victims, of these phantoms. And they also believed 
that the Creator, the God, could be influenced by 
sacrifice, by prayers and ceremonies. 

This has been the mistake of the world. All the 
temples have been reared, all the altars erected, all 
the sacrifices offered, all the prayers uttered in vain. 
No god has interfered, no prayer has been an- 
swered, no help received from heaven. Nothing 
was created, nothing has happened for, or with refer- 
ence to man. If not a human being lived, — if all 
were in their graves, the sun would continue to 
shine, the wheeling world would still pursue its 
flight, violets would spread their velvet bosoms to 
the day, the spendthrift roses give their perfume to 
the air, the climbing vines would hide with leaf and 
flower the fallen and the dead, the changing seasons 
would come and go, time would repeat the poem of 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 2 J 

the year, storms would wreck and whispering rains 
repair, Spring with deft and unseen hands would 
weave her robes of green, life with countless lips 
would seek fair Summer's swelling breasts, Autumn 
would reap the wealth of leaf and fruit and seed, 
Winter, the artist, would etch in frost the pines 
and ferns, while Wind and Wave and Fire, old 
architects, with ceaseless toil would still destroy and 
build, still wreck and change, and from the dust of 
death produce again the throb and breath of life. 



28 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 



V, 

A FEW years ago a few men began to think, to 
investigate, to reason. They began to doubt 
the legends of the church, the miracles of the past. 
They began to notice what happened. They found 
that eclipses came at certain intervals and that their 
coming could be foretold. They became satisfied 
that the conduct of men had nothing to do with 
eclipses — and that the stars moved in their orbits 
unconscious of the sons of men. Galileo, Copernicus, 
and Kepler destroyed the astronomy of the Bible, 
and demonstrated that the "inspired" story of creation 
could not be true and that the church was as igno- 
rant as the priests were dishonest. 

They found that the myth makers were mistaken, 
that the sun and stars did not revolve about the 
earth, that the firmament was not solid, that the earth 
was not flat, and that the so-called philosophy of the 
theologians was absurd and idiotic. 

The stars became witnesses against the creeds of 
superstition. 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 



20 



With the telescope the heavens were explored. 
The New Jerusalem could not be found. 
It had faded away. 

The church persecuted the astronomers and denied 
thejacts. In February, in the year of grace sixteen 
hundred, the Catholic church, the " Triumphant 
Beast," having in her hands, her paws, the keys of 
heaven and hell, accused Giordano Bruno of having 
declared that there were other worlds than this. 
He was tried, convicted, imprisoned in a dungeon 
for seven years. He was offered his liberty if he 
would recant. Bruno, the atheist, the philosopher, 
refused to stain his soul by denying what he believed 
to be true. He was taken from his cell by the 
priests, by those who loved their enemies, led to the 
place of execution. He was clad in a robe on which 
representations of devils had been painted — the 
devils that were soo:i to claim his soul. He was 
chained to a stake and about his body the wood was 
piled. Then priests, followers of Christ, lighted the 
fagots and flames consumed the greatest, the most 
perfect martyr, that ever suffered death. 

And yet the Italian agent of God, the infallible 
Leo XIII, only a few years ago, denounced Bruno, 
the " bravest of the brave," as a coward. 



3° 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 



The church murdered him, and the pope maligned 
his memory. Fagot and falsehood — two weapons 
of the church. 

A little while ago a few men began to examine 
rocks and soils, mountains, islands, reefs and seas. 
They noticed the valleys and deltas that had been 
formed by rivers, the many strata of lava that had 
been changed to soil, the vast deposits of metals and 
coal, the immense reefs that the coral had formed, 
the work of glaciers in the far past, the production of 
soil by the disintegration of rock, by the growth and 
decay of vegetation and the countless evidences of 
the countless ages through which the Earth has 
passed. The geologists read the history of the world 
written by wave and flame, attested by fossils, by the 
formation of rocks, by mountain ranges, by volca- 
noes, by rivers, islands, continents and seas. 

The geology of the Bible — of the " divinely in- 
spired " church, of the " infallible " pope, was found 
to be utterly false and foolish. 

The Earth became a witness against the creeds 
of superstition. 

Then came Watt and Galvani with the miracles of 
steam and electricity, while countless inventors crea- 
ted the wonderful machines that do the work of the 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 3 1 

world. Investigation took the place of credulity. 
Men became dissatisfied with huts and rags, with 
crusts and creeds. They longed for the comforts, 
the luxuries of life. The intellectual horizon en 
lareed, new truths were discovered, old ideas were 
thrown aside, the brain was developed, the heart 
civilized and science was born. Humboldt, La 
Place and hundreds of others explained the phenom- 
ena of nature, called attention to the ancient and 
venerable mistakes of sanctified ignorance and added 
to the sum of knowledge. Darwin and Haeckel gave 
their conclusions to the world. Men began to really 
think, the myths began to fade, the miracles to grow 
mean and small, and the great structure, known as 
theology, fell with a crash. 

Science denies the truth of myth and miracle, de- 
nies that human testimony can substantiate the mi- 
raculous, denies the existence of the supernatural. 
Science asserts the absolute, the unvarying uni- 
formity of nature. Science insists that the present 
is the child of all the past, — that no power can 
change the past, and that nature is forever the 
same, 

The chemist has found that just so many atoms of 
one kind unite with just so many of another — no 



32 MYTH AND MIRACLE. 

more, no less, always the same. No caprice in 
chemistry ; no interference from without. 

The astronomers know that the planets remain in 
their orbits — that their forces are constant. They 
know that light is forever the same, always obeying 
the angle of incidence, traveling with the same ra- 
pidity, — casting the same shadow, under the same 
circumstances in all worlds. They know that the 
eclipses will occur at the times foretold — neither 
hastening nor delaying. They know that the attrac- 
tion of gravitation is always the same, always in per- 
fect proportion to mass and distance, neither weaker 
nor stronger, unvarying forever. They know that 
the facls in nature cannot be changed or destroyed, 
and that the qualities of all things are eternal. 

The men of science know that the atomic integrity 
of the metals is always the same, that each metal is 
true to its nature and that the particles cling to each 
other with the same tenacity, — the same force. 
They have demonstrated the persistence of force, 
that it is forever active, forever the same, and that 
it cannot be destroyed. 

These great truths have revolutionized the thought 
of the world. 

Every art, every employment, all study, all exper- 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 33 

iment, the value of experience, of judgment, of hope, 
all. rest on a belief in the uniformity of nature, on the 
eternal persistence and indestructibility of force. 

Break one link in the infinite chain of cause and 
effect, and the Master of Nature appears. The bro- 
ken link would become the throne of a god. 

The uniformity of Nature denies the supernatural 
and demonstrates that there is no interference from 
without. There is no place, no office left for gods. 
Ghosts fade from the brain and the shrivelled deities 
fall palsied from their thrones. 

The uniformity of Nature renders a belief in 
" special providence " impossible. Prayer becomes 
a useless agitation of the air, and religious ceremo- 
nies are but motions, pantomimes, mindless and 
meaningless. 

The naked savage, worshiping a wooden god, is 
the religious equal of the robed pope kneeling before 
an image of the Virgin. The poor African who 
carries roots and bark to protect himself from evil 
spirits is on the same intellectual plane of one who 
sprinkles his body with " holy water." 

All the creeds of Christendom, all the religions of 
the heathen world are equally absurd. The cathe- 
dral, the mosque and the joss house have the same 



34 MYTH AND MIRACLE. 

foundation. Their builders do not believe in the 
uniformity of Nature, and the business of all priests 
is to induce a so-called infinite being to change the 
order of events, to make causes barren of effects and 
to produce effects without, and in spite of, natural 
causes. They all believe in the unthinkable and 
pray for the impossible. 

Science teaches us that there was no creation and 
that there can be no destruction. The infinite de- 
nies creation and defies destruction. An infinite 
person, an " infinite being " is an infinite impossibil- 
ity. To conceive of such a being is beyond the 
power of the mind. Yet all religions rest upon the 
supposed existence of the unthinkable, the incon- 
ceivable. And the priests of these religions pretend 
to be perfectly familiar with the designs, will, and 
wishes of this unthinkable, this inconceivable. 

Science teaches that that which really is has al- 
ways been, that behind every effect is the efficient 
and necessary cause, that there is in the universe 
neither chance nor interference, and that energy is 
eternal. Day by day the authority of the theologian 
grows weaker and weaker. As the people become 
intelligent they care less for preachers and more for 
teachers. Their confidence in knowledge, in thought 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 35 

and investigation increases. They are eager to 
know the discoveries, the useful truths, the important 
facts made, ascertained and demonstrated by the ex- 
plorers in the domain of the natural. They are no 
longer satisfied with the platitudes of the pulpit, and 
the assertions of theologians. They are losing con- 
fidence in the " sacred scriptures" and in the protect- 
ing power and goodness of the supernatural. They 
are satisfied that credulity is not a virtue and that 
investigation is not a crime. 

Science is the providence of man, the worker of 
true miracles, of real wonders. Science has "read a 
little in Nature's infinite book of secrecy." Science 
knows the circuits of the winds, the courses of the 
stars. Fire is his servant, and lightning his messen- 
ger. Science freed the slaves and gave liberty to 
their masters. Science taught man to enchain, not 
his fellows, but the forces of nature, forces that have 
no backs to be scarred, no limbs for chains to chill 
and eat, forces that have no hearts to break, forces 
that never know fatigue, forces that shed no tears. 
Science is the great physician. His touch has given 
sight. He has made the lame to leap, the deaf to 
hear, the dumb to speak, and in the pallid face his 
hand has set the rose of health. Science has given 



36 MYTH AND MIRACLE. 

his beloved sleep and wrapped in happy dreams the 
throbbing nerves of pain. Science is the destroyer 
of disease, builder of happy homes, the preserver of 
life and love. Science is the teacher of every virtue, 
the enemy of every vice. Science has given the true 
basis of morals, the origin and office of conscience, 
revealed the nature of obligation, of duty, of virtue 
in its highest, noblest forms, and has demonstrated 
that true happiness is the only possible good. Sci- 
ence has slain the monsters of superstition, and de- 
stroyed the authority of inspired books. Science 
has read the records of the rocks, records that priest- 
craft cannot change, and on his wondrous scales has 
weighed the atom and the star. 

Science has founded the only true religion. Sci- 
ence is the only Savior of this world. 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 37 



VI. 

FOR many ages religion has been tried. For 
countless centuries man has sought for help from 
heaven. To soften the heart of God, mothers sacri- 
ficed their babes ! but the God did not hear, did 
not see, and did not help. Naked savages were 
devoured by beasts, bitten by serpents, killed 
by flood and frost. They prayed for help, but their 
God was deaf. They built temples and altars, em- 
ployed priests and gave of their substance, but the 
volcano destroyed and the famine came. For the 
sake of God millions murdered their fellowmen, but 
the God was silent. Millions of martyrs died for 
the honor of God, but the God was blind. He did 
not see the flames, the scaffolds. He did not hear 
the prayers, the groans. Thousands of priests in the 
name of God tortured their fellowmen, stretched 
them on racks, crushed their feet in iron boots, tore 
out their tongues, extinguished their eyes. The 
victims implored the protection of God, but their god 



38 MYTH AND MIRACLE. 

did not hear, did not see. He was deaf and blind. 
He was willing that his enemies should torture his 
friends. 

Nations tried to destroy each other for the sake 
of God, and the banner of the cross dripping with 
blood floated over a thousand fields — but the god 
was silent. He neither knew nor cared. Pestilence 
covered the earth with dead, the priests prayed, the 
altars were heaped with sacrifices, but the god did 
not see, did not hear. The miseries of the world 
did not lessen the joys of heaven. The clouds gave 
no rain, the famine came, withered babes with pallid 
lips sought the breasts of dead mothers, while starv- 
ing fathers knelt and prayed, but the god did not 
hear. Through many centuries millions were en- 
slaved, babes were sold from mothers, husbands 
from wives, backs were scarred with the lash. The 
poor wretches lifted their clasped hands towards 
heaven and prayed for justice, for liberty — but their 
god did not hear. He cared nothing for the suffer- 
ings of slaves, nothing for the tears of wives and 
mothers, nothing for the agony of men. He an- 
swered no prayers. He broke no chains. He freed 
no slaves. 

The miserable wretches appealed to the priests of 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 39 

God, but they were on the other side. They de- 
fended the masters. The slaves had nothing to give, 
During all these years it was claimed by the 
theologians that their God was governing the world, 
that he was infinitely powerful, wise and good — 
and that the " powers " of the earth were " ordained " 
by him. During all these years the church was the 
enemy of progress. It hated all physicians and 
told the people to rely on prayer, amulets and relics. 
It persecuted the astronomers and geologists, de- 
nounced them as infidels and atheists, as enemies of 
the human race. It poisoned the fountains of learn- 
ing- and insisted that teachers should distort the 
facts in nature to the end that they might harmonize 
with the " inspired" book. During all these years the 
church misdirected the energies of man, and when 
it reached the zenith of its power, darkness fell upon 
the world. 

In all nations and in all ages, religion has failed. 
The gods have never interfered. Nature has pro- 
duced and destroyed without mercy and without 
hatred. She has cared no more for man than for the 
leaves of the forest, no more for nations than for hills 
of ants, nothing for right or wrong, for life or death, 
for pain or joy. 



40 MYTH AND MIRACLE. 

Man through his intelligence must protect himself. 
He gets no help from any other world. The church 
has always claimed and still claims that it is the only 
reforming power, that it makes men honest, virtuous 
and merciful, that it prevents violence and war, and 
that without its influence the race would return to 
barbarism. 

Nothing can exceed the absurdity of these claims. 

If we wish to improve the condition of mankind — 
if we wish for nobler men and women we must de- 
velop the brain, we must encourage thought and 
investigation. We must convince the world that 
credulity is a vice, — that there is no virtue in 
believing without, or against evidence, and that the 
really honest man is true to himself. We must fill 
the world with intellectual light. We must applaud 
mental courage. We must educate the children, 
rescue them from ignorance and crime. School- 
houses are the real temples and teachers are the true 
priests. We must supply the wants of the mind, 
satisfy the hunger of the brain. The people should 
be familiar with the great poets, with the tragedies 
of ^Eschylus, the dramas of Shakespeare, with the 
poetry of Homer and Virgil. Shakespeare should 
be taught in every school, found in every house. 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 4 1 

Through photography the whole world may be- 
come acquainted with the great statues, the great 
paintings, the victories of art. In this way the mind 
is enlarged, the sympathies quickened, the apprecia- 
tion of the beautiful intensified, the taste refined and 
the character ennobled. 

The great novels should be read by all. All 
should be acquainted with the men and women of 
fiction, with the ideal world. The imagination 
should be developed, trained and strengthened. 
Superstition has degraded art and literature. It 
gave us winged monsters, scenes from heaven and 
hell, representations of gods and devils, sculptured 
the absurd and painted the impossible in the name 
of Art. It gave us the dreams of the insane, the 
lives of fanatical saints, accounts of miracles and 
wonders, of cures wrought by the bones of the • 
dead, descriptions of paradise, purgatory and the 
eternal dungeon, discourses on baptism, on changing 
wine and wafers into the the blood and flesh of God, 
on the forgiveness of sins by priests, on fore-ordination 
and accountability, predestination and free will, on 
devils, ghosts and goblins, the ministrations of guard- 
ian angels, the virtue of belief and the wickedness of 
doubt. And this was called " sacred literature." 



42 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 



The church taught that those who believed, 
counted beads, mumbled prayers, and gave their 
time or property for the support of the gospel were 
the good and that all others were traveling the 
" broad road " to eternal pain. According to the 
theologians, the best people, the saints, were dead 
and real beauty was to be found only in heaven. 
They denounced the joys of life as husks and filthy 
rags, declared that the world had been cursed and 
that it brought forth thistles and thorns because of 
the sins of man. They regarded the earth as a 
kind of dock, running out into the sea of eternity, — 
on which the pious waited for the ship on which 
they were to be transported to another world. 

But the real poets and the real artists clung to this 
world, to this life. They described and represented 
things that exist. They expressed thoughts of the 
brain, emotions of the heart, the griefs and joys, the 
hope and despair of men and women. They found 
strength and beauty on every hand. They found 
their angels here. They were true to human ex- 
perience and they touched the brain and heart of 
the world. In the tragedies and comedies of life, in 
the smiles and tears, in the ecstacies of love, in the 
darkness of death, in the dawn of hope, they found 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 43 

their materials for statue and song, for poem and 
painting. Poetry and art are the children of this 
world, born and nourished here. They are human. 
They have left the winged monsters of heaven, the 
malicious deformities of hell, and have turned their 
attention to men and women, to the things of this 
life. 

There is a poem called " The Skylark," by Shelley, 
graceful as the motions of flames. Another by 
Robert Burns, called " The Daisy," exquisite, perfect 
as the pearl of virtue in the beautiful breast of a 
loving girl. Between this lark and this daisy, neither 
above nor below, you will find all the poetry of the 
world. Eloquence, sublimity, poetry and art must 
have the foundation of fact, of reality. Imaginary 
worlds and beings are nothing to us. 

At last the old creeds are becoming cruel and 
vulgar. We now have imagination enough to put 
ourselves in the place of others. Believers in hell, 
in eternal pain, like murderers, lack imagination. 
The murderer has not imagination enough to see his 
victim dead. He does not see the sightless and 
pathetic eyes. He does not see the widow's arms 
about the corpse, her lips upon the dead. He does 
not hear the sobs of children. He does not see the 



44 MYTH AND MIRACLE. 

funeral. He does not hear the clods as they fall on 
the coffin. He does not feel the hand of arrest, the 
scene of the trial is not before him. He does not 
hear the awful verdict, the sentence of the court, the 
last words. He does not see the scaffold, nor feel 
about his throat the deadly noose. 

Let us develop the brain, civilize the heart, and 
give wings to the imagination. 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 



4 5 



VII. 

IF we abandon myth and miracle, if we discard the 
supernatural and the scheme of redemption, how 
are we to civilize the world ? 

Is falsehood a reforming power ? Is credulity the 
mother of virtue ? Is there any saving grace in the 
impossible and absurd ? Did wisdom perish with 
the dead ? Must the civilized accept the religion of 
savages ? 

If we wish to reform the world we must rely on 
truth, on fact, on reason. We must teach men that 
they are good or bad for themselves, that others 
cannot be good or bad for them, that they cannot 
be charged with the crimes, or credited with the 
virtues of others. We must discard the doctrine 
of the atonement, because it is absurd and immoral. 
We are not accountable for the sins of " Adam " 
and the virtues of Christ cannot be transferred to 
us. There can be no vicarious virtue, no vicari- 
ous vice. Why should the sufferings of the inno- 



4 6 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 



cent atone for the crimes of the guilty. According 
to the doctrine of the atonement right and wrong 
do not exist in the nature of things, but in the arbi- 
trary will of the Infinite. This is a subversion of all 
ideas of justice and mercy. 

An act is good, bad, or indifferent, according to 
its consequences. No power can step between an 
act and its natural consequences. A governor may 
pardon the criminal, but the natural consequences of 
the crime remain untouched. A god may forgive, 
but the consequences of the act forgiven, are still the 
same. We must teach the world that the conse- 
quences of a bad action cannot be avoided, that they 
are the invisible police, the unseen avengers, that 
accept no gifts, that hear no prayers, that no cunning 
can deceive. 

We do not need the forgiveness of gods, but of 
ourselves and the ones we injure. Restitution with- 
out repentance is far better than repentance without 
restitution. 

We know nothing of any god who rewards, 
punishes or forgives. 

We must teach our fellowmen that honor comes 
from within, not from without, that honor must be 
earned, that it is not alms, that even an infinite God 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 



47 



could not enrich the beggar's palm with the gem of 
honor. 

Teach them also that happiness is the bud, the 
blossom and the fruit of good and noble actions, that 
it is not the gift of any god; that it must be earned 
by man — must be deserved. 

In this world of ours there is no magic, no sleight- 
of-hand, by which consequences can be made to 
punish the good and reward the bad. 

Teach men not to sacrifice this world for some 
other, but to turn their attention to the natural, to 
the affairs of this life. Teach them that theology has 
no known foundation, that it was born of ignorance 
and fear, that it has hardened the heart, polluted the 
imagination and made fiends of men. 

Theology is not for this world. It is no part of 
real religion. It has nothing to do with good- 
ness or virtue. Religion does not consist in wor 
shiping gods, but in adding to the well being, the 
happiness of man. No human being knows whether 
any god exists or not and all that has been said and 
written about " our god " or the gods of other people, 
has no known fact for a foundation. Words without 
thoughts, clouds without rain. 

Let us put theology out of religion. 



48 MYTH AND MIRACLE. 

Church and state should be absolutely divorced. 
Priests pretend that they have been selected by, and 
that they get their power from God. Kings occupy 
their thrones in accordance with the will of God. The 
Pope declares that he is the agent, the deputy of God 
and that by right he should rule the world. All these 
pretentions and assertions are perfectly absurd and 
yet they are acknowledged and believed by millions. 
Get theology out of government and kings will 
descend from their thrones. All will admit that 
governments get their powers from the consent of 
the governed, and that all persons in office are the 
servants of the people. Get theology out of govern- 
ment and chaplains will be dismissed from legislatures, 
from congress, from the army and navy. Get theology 
out of government and people will be allowed to 
express their honest thoughts about " inspired 
books " and superstitious creeds. Get theology 
out of government and priests will no longer steal a 
seventh of our time. Get theology out of govern- 
ment and the clergy will soon take their places with 
augurs and soothsayers, with necromancers and 
medicine-men. 

Get theology out of education. Nothing should 
be taught in a school that somebody does not know. 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 49 

There are plenty of things to be learned about this 
world, about this life. Every child should be taught to 
think, and that it is dangerous not to think. Children 
should not be taught the absurdities, the cruelties 
and imbecilities of superstition. No church should 
be allowed to control the common school, and public 
money should not be divided between the hateful 
and warring sects. The public school should be 
secular, and only the useful should be taught. Many 
of our colleges are under the control of churches. 
Presidents and professors are mostly ministers of 
the gospel and the result is that all facts inconsistent 
with the creeds are either suppressed or denied. 
Only those professors who are naturally stupid or 
mentally dishonest can retain their places. Those 
who tell the truth, who teach the facts, are discharged. 

In every college truth should be a welcome guest. 
Every professor should be a finder, and every stu- 
dent a learner, of facts. Theology and intellectual 
dishonesty go together. The teacher of children 
should be intelligent and perfectly sincere. 

Let us get theology out of education. 

The pious denounce the secular schools as godless. 
They should be. The sciences are all secular, all 
godless. Theology bears the same relation to science 



5o 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 



that the black art does to chemistry, that magic does 
to mathematics. It is something that cannot be 
taught, because it cannot be known. It has no 
foundation in fact. It neither produces, nor accords 
with, any image in the mind. It is not only un- 
knowable but unthinkable. Through hundreds and 
thousands of generations men have been discussing, 
wrangling and fighting about theology. No advance 
has been made. The robed priest has only reached 
the point from which the savage tried to start. 

We know that theology always has and 
always will make enemies. It sows the seeds 
of hatred in families and nations. It is selfish, 
cruel, revengeful and malicious. It has heaven for 
the few and perdition for the many. We now know 
that credulity is not a virtue and that intellectual 
courage is. We must stop rewarding hypocrisy and 
bigotry. We must stop persecuting the thinkers, 
the investigators, the creators of light, the civilizers 
of the world. 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 



5l 



VIIL 



ILL the unknown, the mysteries of life and 



itations of the mind, forever furnish food for super- 
stition? Will the gods and ghosts perish or simply 
retreat before the advancing hosts of science, and 
continue to crouch and lurk just beyond the horizon 
of the known ? Will darkness forever be the womb 
and mother of the supernatural ? 

A little while ago priests told peasants that the New 
Jerusalem, the celestial city was just above the clouds. 
They said that its walls and domes and spires were 
just beyond the reach of human sight. The tele- 
scope was invented and those who looked at the 
wilderness of stars, saw no city, no throne. They 
said to the priests : " Where is your New Jerusalem?" 
The priests cheerfully and confidently replied. "It 
is just beyond where you see." 

At one time it was believed that a race of men 
existed " with their heads beneath their shoulders." 
Returning travelers from distant lands were asked 




death, the world that lies beyond the Km- 



52 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 



about these wonderful people and all replied that 
they had not seen them. "Oh," said the believers 
in the monsters, "the men with heads beneath their 
shoulders live in a country that you did not visit." 
And so the monsters lived and flourished until all 
the world was known. We cannot know the uni- 
verse. We cannot travel infinite distances, and so, 
somewhere in shoreless space there will always be 
room for gods and ghosts, for heavens and hells. 
And so it may be that superstition will live and 
linger until the world becomes intelligent enough to 
build upon the foundation of the known, to keep the 
imagination within the domain of the probable, and 
to believe in the natural — until the supernatural 
shall have been demonstrated. 

Savages knew all about gods, about heavens and 
hells before they knew anything about the world in 
which they lived. They were perfectly familiar with 
evil spirits, with the invisible phantoms of the air, 
long before they had any true conception of them- 
selves. So, they knew all about the origin and 
destiny of the human race. They were absolutely 
certain about the problems, the solution of which, 
philosophers know, is beyond the limitations of the 
mind. They understood astrology, but not astron- 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 53 

omy, knew something of magic, but nothing about 
chemistry. They were wise only as to those things 
about which nothing can be known. 

The poor Indian believed in the " Great Spirit " 
and saw "design" on every hand. — Trees were 
made that he might have bows and arrows, wood for 
his fire and bark for his wigwam — ■ rivers and lakes 
to give him fish, wild beasts and corn that he might 
have food, and the animals had skins that he might 
have clothes. 

Primitive peoples all reasoned in the same way, 
and modern christians follow their example. They 
knew but little of the world and thought that it had 
been made expressly for the use of man. They did 
not know that it was mostly water, that vast regions 
were locked in eternal ice and that in most countries 
the conditions were unfavorable to human life. They 
knew nothing of the countless enemies of man that 
live unseen in water, food and air. Back of the 
little good they knew they put gods and back of the 
evil, devils. They thought it of the greatest impor- 
tance to gain the good will of the gods, who alone 
could protect them from the devils. Those who 
worshiped these gods, offered sacrifices, and obeyed 
priests, were considered loyal members of the tribe 



54 MYTH AND MIRACLE. 

or community, and those who refused to worship 
were regarded as enemies and traitors. The be- 
lievers, in order to protect themselves from the 
anger of the gods, exiled or destroyed the in- 
fidels. 

Believing as they did, the course they pursued was 
natural. They not only wished to protect themselves 
from disease and death, from pestilence and famine 
in this world but the souls of their children from 
eternal pain in the next. Their gods were savages 
who demanded flattery and worship not only, but 
the acceptance of a certain creed. As long as Chris- 
tians believe in eternal punishment they will be the 
enemies of those who investigate and contend for the 
authority of reason, of those who demand evidence, 
who care nothing for the unsupported assertions 
of the dead or the illogical inferences of the 
living. 

Science always has been, is, and always will be 
modest, thoughtful, truthful. It has but one object : 
The ascertainment of truth. It has no prejudice, 
no hatred. It is in the realm of the intellect and 
cannot be swayed or changed by passion. It does 
not try to please God, to gain heaven or avoid hell. 
It is for this world, for the use of man. It is per- 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 



55 



fectly candid. It does not try to conceal, but to 
reveal. It is the enemy of mystery, of pretence and 
cant. It does not ask people to be solemn, but 
sensible. It calls for and insists on the use of all the 
senses, of all the faculties of the mind. It does not 
pretend to be " holy " or " inspired." It courts in- 
vestigation, criticism and even denial. It asks for 
the application of every test, for trial by every 
standard. It knows nothing of blasphemy and 
does not ask for the imprisonment of those who 
ignorantly or knowingly deny the truth. The 
good that springs from a knowledge of the truth is 
the only reward it offers, and the evil resulting 
from ignorance is the only punishment it threatens. 
Its effort is to reform the world through intelli- 
gence. 

On the other hand theology is, always has been, 
and always will be, ignorant, arrogant, puerile and 
cruel. When the church had power, hypocrisy was 
crowned and honesty imprisoned. Fraud wore the 
tiara and truth was a convict. Liberty was in chains, 
Theology has always sent the worst to heaven, the 
best to hell. 

Let me give you a scene from the Day of Judg- 
ment. Christ is upon his throne, his secretary by 



56 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 



his side. A soul appears. This is what hap- 
pens — 

" What is your name ? " 

Torquemada. 

" Were you a Christian ? " 
I was. 

" Did you endeavor to convert your fellow- 
men ? " 

I did. I tried to convert them by persuasion, by 
preaching and praying and even by force. 
" What did you do ? " 

I put the heretics in prison, in chains. I tore out 
their tongues, put out their eyes, crushed their bonse, 
stretched them upon racks, roasted their feet, and if 
they remained obdurate I flayed them alive or burned 
them at the stake. 

" And did you do all this for my glory ? " 

Yes, all for you. I wanted to save some, I wanted 
to protect the young and the weak minded. 

" Did you believe the Bible, the miracles — that I 
was God, that I was born of a virgin and kept money 
in the mouth of a fish ?" 

Yes, I believed it all. My reason was the slave 
of faith. 

" Well done good and faithful servant, enter thou 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 5 J 

into the joys of thy Lord, I was hungry and you 
gave me meat, naked and you clothed me. " 

Another soul arises. 

" What is your name? " 

Giordano Bruno. 

" Were you a Christian ? " 

At one time I was, but for many years I was a 
philosopher, a seeker after truth. 

" Did you seek to convert your fellowmen ? " 

Not to Christianity, but to the religion of reason. 
I tried to develop their minds, to free them from the 
slavery of ignorance and superstition. In my day 
the church taught the holiness of credulity — the 
virtue of unquestioning obedience, and in your name 
tortured and destroyed the intelligent and coura- 
geous. I did what I could to civilize the world, to 
make men tolerant and merciful, to soften the hearts 
of priests, and banish torture from the world. I 
expressed my honest thoughts and walked in the 
light of reason. 

" Did you believe the Bible, the miracles ? Did 
you believe that I was God, that I was born of a 
virgin and that I suffered myself to be killed by the 
Jews to appease the wrath of God — that is of my- 
self— so that God could save the souls of a few ? " 



58 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 



" No, I did not, I did not believe that God was 
ever born into my world, or that God learned the 
trade of a carpenter, or that he " increased in knowl- 
edge," or that he cast devils out of men, or that his 
garments could cure diseases, or that he allowed 
himself to be murdered, and in the hour of death 
" forsook " himself. These things I did not and 
could not believe. But I did all the good I could. 
I enlightened the ignorant, comforted the afflicted, 
defended the innocent, divided even my poverty with 
the poor, and did the best I could to increase the 
happiness of my fellowmen. I was a soldier in the 
army of progress. — I was arrested, imprisoned, tried 
and convicted by the church — by the " Triumphant 
Beast," I was burned at the stake by ignorant and 
heartless priests and my ashes given to the winds. 

Then Christ, his face growing dark, his brows 
contracted with wrath, with uplifted hands, with half 
averted face, cries or rather shrieks : " Depart from 
me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the 
devil and his angels." 

This is the justice of God — the mercy of the 
compassionate Christ. This is the belief, the dream 
and hope of the orthodox theologian — " the con- 
summation devoutly to be wished." 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 59 

Theology makes God a monster, a tyrant, a 
savage. Makes man a servant, a serf, a slave, 
promises heaven to the obedient, the meek, the 
frightened, and threatens the self reliant with the 
tortures of hell. 

It denounces reason and appeals to the passions — 
to hope and fear. It does not answer the arguments 
of those who attack, but resorts to sophistry, falsehood 
and slander. It is incapable of advancement. It 
keeps its back to the sunrise, lives on myth and 
miracle, and or U ards with a miser's care the "sacred" 
superstitions of the past. 

In the great struggle between the supernatural and 
the natural, between gods and men, we have passed 
midnight. All the forces of civilization, all the facts 
that have been found, all the truths that have been 
discovered are the allies of science — the enemies of 
the supernatural. 

We need no myths, no miracles, no gods, no 
devils. 



6o 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 



IX. 

FOR thousands of generations the myths have 
been taught and the miracles believed. Every 
mother was a missionary and told with loving care 
the falsehoods of " faith " to her babe. The poison 
of superstition was in the mother's milk. She was 
honest and affectionate and her character, her good- 
ness, her smiles and kisses, entered into, mingled 
with, and became a part of the superstition that she 
taught. Fathers, friends and priests united with the 
mothers, and the children thus taught, became the 
teachers of their children and so the creeds were 
kept alive. 

Childhood loves the romantic, the mysterious, the 
monstrous. It lives in a world where cause has 
nothing to do with effect, where the fairy waves her 
hand and the prince appears. Where wish creates 
the thing desired and facts become the slaves of 
amulet and charm. The individual lives the life of 
the race, and the child is charmed with what the race 
in its infancy produced. 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 



61 



There seems to be the same difference between 
mistakes and facts that there is between weeds and 
corn. Mistakes seem to take care of themselves, 
while the facts have to be guarded with all possible 
care. Falsehoods like weeds flourish without care. 
Weeds care nothing for soil or rain. They not only 
ask no help but they almost defy destruction. In 
the minds of children, superstitions, legends, myths 
and miracles find a natural, and in most instances a 
lasting home. Thrown aside in manhood, forgotten 
or denied, in old age they oft return and linger to 
the end. 

This in part accounts for the longevity of religious 
lies. Ministers with clasped hands and uplifted eyes 
ask the man who is thinking for himself how he can 
be wicked and heartless enough to attack the religion 
of his mother. This question is regarded by the 
clergy as unanswerable. Of course it is not to to be 
asked by the missionaries, of the Hindus and the 
Chinese. The heathen are expected to desert the 
religion of their mothers as Christ and his apostles 
deserted the religion of their mothers. It is right 
for Jews and heathen, but not for thinkers and phil- 
osophers. 

A cannibal was about to kill a missionary for food. 



62 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 



The missionary objected and asked the cannibal how 
he could be so cruel and wicked. 

The cannibal replied that he followed the example 
of his mother. " My mother," said he, " was good 
enough for me. Her religion is my religion. The 
last time I saw her she was sitting, propped up 
against a tree, eating cold missionary." 

But now the mother argument has mostly lost its 
force, and men of mind are satisfied with nothing less 
than truth. 

The phenomena of nature have been investigated 
and the supernatural has not been found. The 
myths have faded from the imagination and of them 
nothing remains but the poetic. The miraculous 
has become the absurd, the impossible. Gods and 
phantoms have been driven from the earth and sky. 
We are living in a natural world. 

Our fathers, some of them, demanded the freedom 
of religion. We have taken another step. We 
demand the Religion of Freedom. 

O Liberty, thou art the god of my idolatry ! Thou 
art the only deity that hateth bended knees. In thy 
vast and unwalled temple, beneath the roofless dome, 
star gemmed and luminous with suns, thy worshipers 
stand erect ! They do not cringe, or crawl, or bend 



MYTH AND MIRACLE. 63 

their foreheads to the earth. The dust has never 
borne the impress of their lips. Upon thy altars 
mothers do not sacrifice their babes, nor men their 
rights. Thou askest naught from man except the 
things that good men hate — the whip, the chain, the 
dungeon key. Thou hast no popes, no priests, who 
stand between their fellow men and thee. Thou 
carest not for foolish forms, or selfish prayers. At 
thy sacred shrine hypocrisy does not bow, virtue does 
not tremble, superstition's feeble tapers do not burn, 
but Reason holds aloft her inextinguishable torch 
whose holy light will one day flood the world. 



Robert G. Ingersoll's Works. 

GodS and Other Lectures. Comprising the Gods, Humboldt, Thomas 
Paine, Individuality, Heretics and Heresies. Paper 50c; cloth, $1.00. 

GhOStS and Other Lectures. Including The Ghosts, Liberty of Man 
Woman, and Child; The Declaration of Independence, About Farming in 
Illinois, Speech nominating James G. Blaine for Presidency in 1876, The Grant 
Banquet, A Tribute to Rev. Alex. Clark, The Past Pises before Me Like a Dream, 
and A Tribute to Ebon C. Ingersoll. Paper, 50c; cloth, $1.00. 

Some Mistakes of Moses. 270pages, paper, 50c; cloth, $1.00. 

Interviews On Talmage. Being Six Interviews with the Famous 
Orator on Six Sermons by the Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage of Brooklyn, to which 
is added a Talmagian Catechism. Paper, 50c; cloth, $1.25. 

Blasphemy. Argument by R. G. Ingersoll in the Trial of C. B. Reynolds, at 
Morristown, N. J. Paper, 25c; cloth, 50c 

What Must We Do to Be Saved? Analyzes the so-called gospels of 
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and devotes a chapter each to the Catholics, 
Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians, Evangelical Alliance, and answers 
the question of the Christians as to what he proposes instead of Christianity 
—the religion of sword and flame. Paper, 25 cents. 

The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child, justout. a Lecture. 

Paper, 25 cts. 

Prose-Poems and Selections. Fifth edition, enlarged and re- 
vised. A handsome quarto, containing 383 pages. This is, beyond question, the 
cheapest and most elegant volume in Liberal literature. Its mechanical finish 
is worthy of its intrinsic excellence. No expense has been spared to make it the 
thing of beauty it is. The type is large and clear, the paper heavy, highly calen- 
dered, and richly tinted, the presswork faultless, and the binding as perfect as 
the best materials and skill can make it. 

As to the contents, it is enough to say that they include all of the choicest utterances 
of the greatest writer on the topics treated that has ever lived. 

Those who have not the good fortune to own all of Mr. Ingersoll's published works, 
will have in this book of selections many bright samples of his lofty thought, his 
matchless eloquence, his wonderful imagery, and his epigrammatic and poetic 
power. The collection includes all of the "Tributes " that have become famous 
in literature— notably those to his brother E. C. Ingersoll, Lincoln, Grant, 
Beecher, Conklin, Courtlandt M. Palmer, Mary Fiske, Elizur "Wright: his peer- 
less monographs on "The Vision of War," Love, Liberty, Art and Morality, 
Science, Nature, The Imagination, Decoration Day Oration, What is Poetry, 
Music of Wagner, Origin and Destiny, " Leaves of Grass," and on the great 
heroes of intellectual Liberty. Besides these there are innumerable gems taken 
here and there from the orations, speeches, arguments, toasts, lectures, letters, 
interviews, and day by day conversations of the author. 

The book is designed for, and will be accepted by, admiring friends as a rare per- 
sonal souvenir. To help it serve this purpose, a fine steel portrait, with auto- 
graph fac-simile, has been pr 3pared especially for it. In the more elegant styles 
of binding it is eminently suited for presentation purposes, for any season or 
occasion. 

Prices.— In cloth, beveled boards, gilt edges, $2.50; in half morocco, gilt edges, |5; 
in half calf, mottled edges, library style, $4.50 ; in full Turkey morocco, gilt, 
exquisitely fine, $7.50; in full tree calf, highest possible finish. $9. 

Ingersoll's Lectures in one volume, contents: The Gods; 

Humboldt; Individuality; Thomas Paine; Heretics and Heresies; The Ghosts; 
The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child ; The Centennial Oration, or Declara- 
tion of Independence, July 4, 1876 ; What I Know About Farming in Illinois ; 
Speech at Cincinnati in 1876, nominating James G. Blaine for the Presidency ; 
The Past Rises Before Me, or Vision of War, an extract from a Speech made at 
the Soldiers' and Sailors' Reunion at Indianapolis, Ind., Sept. 21, 1876; A Tribute 
to Ebon C. Ingersoll ; The Grant Banquet ; Crimes Against Criminals; Tribute 
to the Rev. Alexander Clarke ; Some Mistakes of Moses ; What Must We Do to 
be Saved ? Six Interviews with Robert G. Ingersoll on Six Sermons by the Rev. 
T. De Witt Talmage, D. D ; to which is added a Talmagian Catechism, and 
Four Prefaces, which contain 3ome of Mr. Ingersoll's wittiest and brightest say- 
ings. 

This volume has the greatest popularity, is beautifully bound in half calf or half 
morocco, mottled edges, 1,357 pages, good paper, large type, post 8vo. Price, 

postpaid. $5.00. 



Faith or Agnosticism. 



THE 

Ingersoll- Field Discussion 

— BETWEEN — 

Robert G. Ingersoll 

— and — 

Henry M. Field, D. D. 

^Only B.-oAfoorizea\, lull aTid\. Complete "Edition, v— 

ALL intelligent people love discussion — delight in word encounters, in in- 
tellectual combats. The North American Review has lately been the 
arena of one of these mental tournaments— the discussion between MR. 
Ingersoll and Dr. Field, who is editor of the The New York Evangelist and 
one of the celebrated Field family. 

Intense interest has naturally followed each step of this discussion as it ap- 
peared from month to month in the Review. Extra editions were soon exhausted, 
and the supply was always short of the demand. To satisfy the desire to have 
these articles in complete and inexpensive form, the publisher, by arrangement 
with the Review, has printed the entire series in one volume. 

It is needless to say that it is lively reading. The question is an absorbing 
one, and will probably remain so even after the arguments pro and con are all 
in. Those who say that Mr. Ingersoll never brings forward a new argument, 
that his views have been answered over and over again, will do well to read 
this discussion, and to bear in mind while reading it that, as he says, " An argu- 
ment is always new— has the dew of morning upon it— until it is answered." 

Two leaders of thought are here arrayed in friendly antagonism — one the 
acknowledged intellectual giant of Freethought in this century, and the other 
an accepted champion of the Church. The weapons are of their own choice. 
How deftly wielded, and with what effect, the readers on each side will deter- 
mine. It is certain that intellectual liberty has been and will be advanced by 
the discussion, and that many thousands of eager spectators will come to this 
book to witness the splendid combat. 

The volume is a large i2moof 102 pages. Price, in cloth, 50 cts.; paper, 25 cts. 
Orders will be registered and filled as to date of reception. Sent post-paid 
on receipt of price, or in quantities by express, C.O.D., at special rates. Address: 

C. P. FARRELL, Publisher, New York. 

(Only authorized Publisher of all of Mr. Ingersoll's Works.) 



mini TTJST F-U*SXiZSZ££:33 il 

A new edition of 44 The Ingersoll-Gladstone Discussion" on the Christian 

religion. Cloth, 50 cents ; paper, 25 cents. 



iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiim 

New Boob ^rColonO. 6. Ingersoll. | 

Myth and Miracle. A new lecture, now published for the first time. j| 

Paper, 25 cts. = 

The Field-IngerSOll DiSCUSSion. Faith or Agnosticism ? Price, g 

cloth, 50 cts., paper, 25 cts. = 

The Ingersoll- Gladstone Discussion on Christianity. = 

Never before published in book form. Price, cloth, 50 cts., paper, 25 cts. e 

11 AbOUt the Holy Bible." (New). Paper, 25 cts. 1 

His Great Lecture on Shakespeare, a Masterpiece, containing e 

a handsome half-tone likeness of Shakespeare from the Kesselstadt death E 

mask. 44 Shakespeare was an intellectual ocean whose waves touched all = 

the shores of thought." Price, paper, 25 cts. EE 

Abraham Lincoln. Containing a handsome portrait, "Apiece of sub- =J 

lime eulogy." Paper, 25 cts. = 

Voltaire. With portrait, " He was the greatest man of his century, and did E 

more to free the human race than any other of the sons of men." Paper, 25 c. = 

Liberty for Man, Woman, and Child. This lecture is gotten up § 

in the handsome style of "Voltaire" and 4 4 Lincoln, " and has as a frontis- = 

piece a fine photo-engraving of the Colonel and both his grandchildren, Eva = 

and Robert, the little fellow upon his knee, and Eva in her high chair. In = 

this pamphlet is also the Colonel's TRIBUTE TO HIS BROTHER, which E 

so many have desired to have in convenient form. Price, 25 cts. ~ 

" PrOSe-PoemS and Selections." A new and cheap edition, i 

containing over 400 pages. The most elegant volume in Liberal literature. = 

Good paper, wide margins, plain cloth, (sixth edition.) Price, $1.50. = 

The Great Ingersoll Controversy. Containing the Famous i 

Christmas Sermon, by Col. R. G. Ingersoll ; the indignant protests thereby = 

evoked from ministers of various denominations, and Colonel Ingersoll's == 

replies to the same. A work of tremendous interest to every thinking man e 

and woman. Price, paper, 25 cts. = 

IS Suicide a Sin? Ingersoll's startling, brilliant and thrillingly eloquent E 

letters, which created such a sensation when published in the New York e 

World, together with the replies of famous clergymen and writers, a verdict E 

from a jury of eminent men of New York, Curious Facts About Suicides, = 

celebrated essays and opinions of noted men, and an astonishing and original E 

chapter, GREAT SUICIDES OF HISTORY i Price, paper, 25 cts. | 

Which Way? A new lecture, revised and enlarged. Price,25C Ready Oct. 15. = 

Foundations Of Faith. {Now writing.) Price 25 cts. 1 

Last Chance to Obtain a Rare Book. if 

u Life Of JeSUS Critically Examined " by David Friedrich Strauss, E 

was first published in two volumes for $9. The edition ran out, and another e 

was issued in one volume for $4.50. This edition is almost exhausted, less E 

than fifty copies being in existence. Of what are left I have obtained a share, e 

and can furnish them postpaid at the last price, $4.50. They will not last E 

long, and advise those who want a copy to send at once. When these are e 

gone there will be no more. This edition is translated from the fourth Ger- E 

man edition by George Eliot, and contains 784 large octavo pages of solid ~ 

reading. This is a very valuable work, one which the church wishes had E 

never been written, but which it cannot controvert. = 



Any or all the above Books sent prepaid upon receipt of price. 

C. P. FARRELL, Publisher, New York. 



fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimiiiiiiiim 



